Forever chemicals in water, likely food: Tribune investigation

Something as simple as drinking tap water is exposing millions of Illinoisans to toxic chemicals that build up in human blood, cause cancer and other diseases and take years to leave the body.

Scientists call the chemicals per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS. They are commonly known as forever chemicals because they don’t break down in the environment.

Despite plenty of warning signs, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency didn’t begin testing the state’s water utilities for PFAS until August 2020. Then state and local officials downplayed the results, burying notices filled with technical jargon on government websites.

Until now the scope of PFAS problems in Illinois remained unknown. More than 8 million people in the state — 6 out of every 10 Illinoisans — get their drinking water from a utility where at least one forever chemical has been detected, according to a Chicago Tribune investigation that included a computerized analysis of test results and a review of court documents, government records and scientific studies.

“It’s disgusting and overwhelming at the same time,” said Ellen Meeks Rendulich, co-director of a grassroots environmental group in Will County, where the state found PFAS in a dozen communities, including the Criswell Court mobile home park in Joliet.

Tracy Lehr remembered that state officials came twice last year to test a well on the property. Lehr, who has lived in Criswell Court for 21 years, said she and her neighbors were never warned their water is contaminated with PFAS at levels up to 1,800 times higher than the latest federal health advisory.

“I’ve never trusted the water here,” Lehr said as she pointed to shrink-wrapped packs of bottled water stacked throughout her trailer.

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Farmers on the edges of suburbia are encouraged to spread sludge on their fields by local officials, farm bureaus, university extension agents — even the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

But despite assurances the practice is safe and legal, sewage sludge is contaminating thousands of acres of northeast Illinois farmland with toxic forever chemicals, a Chicago Tribune investigation has found.

During the past six years, federal records show, more than 615,000 tons of sludge from the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago has been plowed into 29,000 acres near the nation’s third largest city. (All of that land combined is roughly the size of west suburban Aurora.)

Only the Greater Los Angeles area distributed more sludge to farmers during the period.

Meanwhile, researchers have concluded there is ample evidence that PFAS end up in crops and livestock.

Researchers and public health advocates are increasingly concerned because some PFAS build up in human blood, take years to leave the body and don’t break down in the environment. Others transform over time into more hazardous compounds, increasing the risk that grains, beans, hay and produce grown in sludge-amended soil could be tainted for years to come.

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Bags of the earthy muck are labeled organic or natural. Sometimes it is billed as exceptional quality compost. Industry held a nationwide contest years ago and decided to call it biosolids, a euphemism that beat out black gold, geoslime and humanure.

No matter how it is described, the hummus-like material distributed to gardeners, neighborhood groups and landscapers by the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District is still sewage sludge — a byproduct of human excrement and industrial waste from Chicago and the Cook County suburbs.

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Long-term exposure to tiny concentrations of certain PFAS can trigger testicular and kidney cancer, birth defects, liver damage, impaired fertility, immune system disorders, high cholesterol and obesity, studies have found. Links to breast cancer and other diseases are suspected.

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The Tribune identified 1,654 potential sources of PFAS statewide through a national analysis of industry codes that designate the type of products manufactured or used at a particular factory. Only California, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Florida have more facilities on the list of suspected polluters.

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Physicians should test millions of Americans for toxic forever chemicals, the nation’s leading scientific advisory body urges in a new report that reflects growing concerns about unregulated compounds added to clothing, food packaging and household products.

New guidelines for the nation’s doctors came the same week another group of researchers estimated that exposure to forever chemicals — also known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS — could cost the current U.S. population nearly $63 billion in hidden health costs.

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The chemicals have been added to nonstick cookware, water-repellent clothing, stain-resistant fabrics and carpets, cosmetics, firefighting foams, food packaging and other products that resist grease, oil and water.

PFAS persist in the environment and accumulate in people, animals and aquatic life. These “forever chemicals” are in the blood of nearly every American, including newborn babies.

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If Wilbur Earl Tennant’s cows hadn’t died from a mysterious wasting disease during the 1990s, the world might have never learned about the secret history of toxic forever chemicals.

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